Comparative performance study of an integrated air-cycle refrigeration and power generation system

This study presents comparative energy and exergy analysis of an integrated air-cycle refrigeration and power generation system with four embodiments as developed in the literature. The energy and exergy efficiencies, energy and exergy inputs and outputs and major exergy destructions in the components are determined and compared for four embodiments. Parametric studies are also performed to observe the effects of different influential parameters namely: ambient temperature, mass flow rate and inlet air pressure of the air. The energy and exergy efficiencies of system 1 and system 2 are found to be 61.6% and 58.1%, and 64.3% and 60.7%, respectively. The energy and exergy efficiencies for system 3 are found to be the highest in the order of 74% and 68.5%, whereas for system 4 energy and exergy efficiencies are 64.8% and 61.2%, respectively. Moreover, system 3 produces the maximum net work done 4164 kW, whereas system 1 produces minimum net work done 2585 kW.